1 John 5:13-21
Confident Christianity

1. How does Psalm 91:1-7 inspire confidence in you today?

2. What kind of people is John writing to in this letter (1 John)? How might that help us in
terms of how to apply this passage?

3. “Eternal life is a present, promised reality.” How does this truth, reflected in 1 John 5:13,
inspire confidence and help us to understand (“know”) our identity in Christ?

4. How has this season been a “wake-up call” for you to see God in a whole new way?

5. “Prayer is about alignment of wills, not acquisition of wants.” Do you think that most people
consider prayer this way? How might this be a helpful clarification for us?

6. What were the ways Kevin suggested to know whether our prayers are aligned with
God’s will?

7. How has God protected you from your own prayers in your life?

8. How did Kevin explain “the sin that leads to death”?

9. What is “intercession”? How might we be overly or underly responsible in intercession?

10. “God is all about supernatural salvation; not about moral transformation.” Take a few minutes
to write out or discuss this observation and what it means.

11. What sin has God helped you overcome in your life? Take a minute to praise Him and
tell others!

12. “I believe that God’s love for me far exceeds the lows of my life.” You are not defined by the
worst moments of your life. How does this truth inspire confidence?

13. How can you make God’s voice the loudest one you hear? What practical steps might
you take to do this this week?

14. How do we live with hope in a world that feels hopeless? How might you speak hope
into the hopelessness swirling around you this week?

15. Consider these words from A.W. Tozer about the nature of sin. How does this quote
reflect and comment on 1 John 5?

Sin… is always an act of wrong judgment. To commit a sin a man must for the moment
believe that things are different from what they really are; he must confound values; he must
see the moral universe out of focus; he must accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie; he
must ignore the signs on the highway and drive with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had
no soul, and was not accountable for his moral choices.

Sin is never a thing to be proud of. No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin
always does. Sin sees only today, or at most tomorrow; never the day after tomorrow, next
month or next year. Death and judgment are pushed aside as if they did not exist, and the
sinner becomes for the time a practical atheist who by his act denies not only the existence
of God but the concept of life after death.

… A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Man: The Dwelling Place of God, Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian
Publications, Inc., 1966, p. 47